I haven't seen the video yet but Jason Statham should never be on a 'best ever' list for action heroes. His action movies are B-Grade, his american accent is shite, and his best film wasn't even a full on action flick (Snatch, what else?).

I repeat, too, that his American accent is Abysmal. You may be forgiven for not knowing he has one, but rather thinking he likes to 'curve' his "o"s when he wants to sound badass. You are forgiven. His American accent is so bad that I repeatedly fall for that very 'forgot he was trying to do an American accent' situation and realised to my great pain and humiliation that I was watching Jason Statham trying to sound American.

Jason Statham is more the only left over from a period of great action movies, because he came too late. Crank is very good, but that's about it. Transporter movies are kinda really generic, Crank 2 is basically Crank 1 but not so good and if you look up his list of movies he was in half of the movies you remember he wasn't even "the star" (like The One, Expendables 1+2, Collateral, The Italian Job, Death Race, Snatch and Lock, Stock And Two Barrels). Not even mentioning the dozen movies you can't remember because they were shit even AFTER he became famous.

Now turn to Arnold. You know 90% of the movies he made after Conan and he isn't "the star" in a handful of them. And he made DOZENS. Ok, a few of them weren't action movies. But he made more action movies than Statham was in movies at all. And he was a governor for some years not making any movies at all...

If you translate the debate to sports, I'd say Jason Statham is like the best player in the NBA this season and Arnold is a legend like Air Jordan. Anyone who favors Statham is probably too young to know more than a dozen Arnie movies.

Why does it seem like whoever is sitting on the right side of the screen (guest stars included now :P) always seem to gain the upper hand?

For the record, this debate is easily decided. Arnold survived the 80's - a trial-by-fire for action stars - with his career intact. Jason didn't even make movies in the 80's. Game. Set. Match. Arnold.

You know what, I'm gonna make a joke Thesis; and try to take it seriously:

Rainbow Dash would make the greatest Action star, because her very presences seems to turn the very world around her more into an Action film the longer she's in the area. And since she lives in a world where Peace and harmony rule for 90% of the time, that's saying something.

Her first scene is her crash Tackling the Main character; she attempts to leap strait for Violence with Nightmare Moon, Twilight (Again), A (Misunderstood) Monster, A Sleeping dragon, and more.

In the episode she focuses most in, she spends the entire time acting like a comic book super hero, despite her abilities being only kinda above average for her species. And she spends the half the episode trying to out Action star Six other ponies posing as one Super hero.

She leads a cart chase after a friend and takes it way too seriously...

She practices Combat sports as a hobby, despite the fact that it's only done anything good in that "Diplomacy based world" like... once.

She seems to have even taken up the hobby of "Dragon Watching", which has already scorched her once; and she healed perfectly.

All this comes to a head when her "action star, reality warping powers" get so strong, that in a season finale, that should have been about a normal everyday wedding; the entire castle is invaded by changelings and she kicks every single one of their butts before they're rounded up back to the thrown room for "round 2". At which point, the only reason she wasn't the one who saved the day is because "Magical Love" solved all their problems... by nuking it!

One-Liners an action hero does not make. An action hero isn't the kind of guy that you can sit there and laugh at. No, an action hero is the kind of guy that you go "Wow, that was really bad-ass." I honestly find that Arnold's movies with the exception of Predator are just trying too hard. Batman and Robin is not an example of a good action movie unless you live in opposite land.

As far as Jason goes, he has done multiple action movies with different characters and he doesn't stray far from what he does. (Arguably some actors don't like being type-casted but for some it guarantees that when you think something specific you think of them.)

If you want comedy you think Robin Williams.If you want satire you go for Will Ferrel.If you want martial arts you go for Bruce Lee.If you want action you think of Bruce Willis.

Bruce Willis wasn't on your option for best action hero so the next one I think of is Jason Statham.

If you want a ridiculous over-the-top silly action star you want Arnold.

1: He kicked *real life* ass. He destroyed a man who was considered to be the best Kung-Fu practitioner in America in an extremely one-sided 3 minutes, and his reaction was disappointment that he didn't kick the dude's ass quicker.

2: His life was an action movie. The reason he had to fight the dude considered to be the best Kung-Fu practitioner in America is because he was teaching kung-fu to white people. He was fighting for equal rights and anti-discrimination and everything you see heroes fighting for in movies--before he even considered becoming an actor.

3: Chuck Norris made his entire career out of getting his ass kicked by Bruce Lee.

I can't help but add to the chorus that this should have been Arnold Schwarzenegger vs Bruce Willis, and then cast my vote for Bruce. Proof that I'm right, at least about the matchup? Next week's No Right Answer: Best Catchphrase from an Action Movie - "I'll Be Back" vs "Yippie Kay Aye"

The word bad-ass shouldn't be thrown around lightly and handed to just anyone but Statham? he clearly deserves this title. Just take a look at the ending of this film (which I watched last night and absolutely did not colour my opinion while I watched this weeks no right answer in any way shape or form)

Long story short the guy in the uniform is a cop killer. He hates Statham because Statham is awesome encarnate.

He removes a bomb from the bottom of his car by flipping it upside down under a crane. Not only that he knew there would be a bomb there that needed to be removed, he has done this so many times that he just has a sixth sense about these things.

He's not an action movie star. He a martial arts star. Also, most of his films are unremarkable.

If you're going to separate the two, then Jason Statham is a martial arts star, too.

Martial arts flicks are action movies. Just because a flick doesn't use guns, doesn't mean it doesn't qualify as action. Hell, it's pretty standard these days for martial arts movies to include guns (like The Raid), or action movies to feature martial arts (like--well, pretty much every action movie that was made after the 80s).

Zehuty:Bruce Lee the reason he is the best, after ten minutes in the Expendables 2 he left.

What a sec... did Bruce Lee come out of retirement from being dead to be in that movie? Or are you confusing him with Jet Lee?

Jet Li.

BOOYAKASHA! Your credibility is shot. I win!

Jason Statham actually got into 'action movies' because he was in The One with Jet Li (which also featured both martial arts and explosions). And, while he didn't really do any fighting in that, he got Jet Li to teach him a couple strikes and kicks off-camera.

If I reckon correctly, the next thing Statham did was The Transporter. Needless to say, dude had a knack.

Anyways, that's a pointless aside.

Lee's movies weren't spectacular, but they also weren't that big-budget. Hollywood was leery about touching the guy because he was Chinese, and they didn't think he could draw a white crowd (despite his success as Kato in The Green Hornet).

The question was best action hero. Nothing to do with special effects budgets and whatnot, and Bruce Lee was, is, and always will be, the man.

I've always seen them classed as 'Martial Arts Action Films', more of a subgenre rather than fully fledged action films. The same as 'Action Adventure'. Indeed, in recent times, western films like The Transporter have incorporated martial arts. Overall, like many thrillers, are often considered to have specific elements of action films, but are not quite. Therefore, a slightly different kettle of fish.

By the way, where did I mention anything about special effects or explosions? Action films are generally films with a variety of, and a high emphasis, on action-eque scenarios. Fair play, this does tend to mean lots of guns and explosions, but the point is that they tend not to degrade into detracting from the main story (good ones, anyway). Or in a martial art movie's case even, stopping the story dead in its tracks, to add pointless scenes of people doing girlie dancing whilst bitch-slapping each other for the best part of 10 minutes.

Regarding the spelling of Jet Li's name, my whole comment was a bit of fun. But if I lose credibility to you, then fair enough. But I'm afraid I may lose sleep at night over this.

No, Bruce Lee isn't 'The Man'. He can't act for shit (from what I've seen of his films in the past). His martial arts are enough to give him iconic status, but people like Schwarzenegger and Willis, or Jackie Chan for that matter, are entertaining, charismatic, can act, and play a variety of roles convincingly.

Yes, maybe you could blame Hollywood for not allowing him to spread his wings further, or because at the time the action film was only coming into its own in West, but it still stands he just isn't very good in any scene that doesn't require him to spin around like a merry-go-round whilst frantically squealing.

If my above opinion makes Stathem a martial arts star, then so be it. I've already pointed out he isn't very good. Reason being, he has the charisma of a goldfish dying in the Sahara Desert. Although I will admit there are glimmers of character in The Expendables films. It was because of them that I decided to watch other films of his in the hope of something more. But overall, he just doesn't come off as very likeable in him films.

I can't speak for the world, but pretty much everybody here in the UK that I've spoken to doesn't like him or his films either (although I'm sure he's a nice guy in real life). Perhaps it's his 'foreign accent', according to Americans, that makes him so popular(?).

Anyway, fingers crossed, if he continues to become more successful, he'll choose to take on roles that are more than him just growling and lookin' 'ard. If not, he'll probably fall into the same obscurity as Steven Seagal.

I've already won by grammatical default (you misspelt Statham somewhere in there, btw), so I'll just go over bits that merit discussion instead of beating the dead horse (with many twirly kicks and whatnot).

I've always seen them classed as 'Martial Arts Action Films', more of a subgenre rather than fully fledged action films. The same as 'Action Adventure'. Indeed, in recent times, western films like The Transporter have incorporated martial arts. Overall, like many thrillers, are often considered to have specific elements of action films, but are not quite. Therefore, a slightly different kettle of fish.

Unfortuantely, many people have many different ways of classifying movies. What you see listed as Action in one library could show up as Suspense/Thriller in another, Action/Adventure in a third, Drama in a fourth, and Crime in a fifth. Even if the studio itself goes ahead and says "It's action", people will still want to reclassify a film into whatever fits their paradigms.

Now, there's one very different type of movie that you seem to be thinking of: The Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon type of traditional martial arts movies, where ancient masters fly through the treetops and fight using ballet--a specific type of action move that doesn't really have a specific English definition that I've heard. I've seen it classified as "Kung-Fu", but that umbrella covers Jet Li sci-fi, Jackie Chan buddy comedies, and so forth. I've seen textbooks classify it as "Wuxia Pian". These are still action movies (as much as the Western equivalents of historical-period action like Gladiator and The Thirteenth Warrior and whatnot), but they were developed completely separate from Western storytelling, so they feel completely alien--exposition is delivered by a villain monologuing *while fighting*, the outcome of fistfights arbitrarily determine the future of the entire country, every bad guy is a martial arts master who practices by kicking a tree in half with a single blow.

This umbrella is sort of the seed for Bruce Lee movies; there are some elements of both. For example, in Way of the Dragon, Bruce Lee's fight with Chuck Norris doesn't have the two characters narrating what they're doing and ham-fistedly delivering exposition about the differences in their styles, but he still sort of ham-fists it when they're warming up and you keep seeing the cut-aways to the cat doing the same stretches as Bruce Lee. But, then again, you also get the more subtle (well, okay, not subtle at all, but more action-based) exposition when Norris has obviously lost, but decides to go at him again.

Anyways, my point is, they're both action. Just a different kind of action. And I'll readily admit that Lee's movies weren't as great as they could be--they weren't made with the same production standards as Hollywood action movies, they retain a lot of the Eastern narrative elements that just don't seem to flow with Western audiences, so on and so forth. But the problem in all his movies was never Bruce Lee. I think he did a decent enough acting job wherever he could (mainly because all his characters were essentially written to be himself), but that isn't really why people watch his movies.

And if you want to go by proper acting chops, then Schwarzeneggar and Statham fail as well, because they're both horrible, *horrible* actors. (Hell, the Schwarzeneggar's biggest selling point is that he's so horrible that it makes him hilarious.) Hell, most of the action stars are.

Anyway, fingers crossed, if he continues to become more successful, he'll choose to take on roles that are more than him just growling and lookin' 'ard. If not, he'll probably fall into the same obscurity as Steven Seagal.